Just Another Night in Limbo
by 554Laura
Summary: Booth and Brennan discuss Halloween as she examines a set of remains in bone storage. No tricks: I don't own Bones. My treat: a fun and fluffy one shot.


_A/N: Set in Season 6, after the Truth in the Myth. Booth may be slightly out of character, but it's all in good fun._

"Aren't you ready to go yet, Bones?", Booth whined as he fidgeted with his tie. "This place really gives me the creeps." Booth glanced around at the shadows that seemed to be closing in on him from the corners of the room. The only light in Limbo at that moment was the fluorescent lamp hanging from the ceiling directly over Brennan's exam table as she inspected the skeleton that was laid out before her.

Brennan gave him an annoyed glance. "I'm almost finished...maybe ten more minutes. I don't know why you'd find Bone Storage so uncomfortable, Booth. You've been down here several times."

"Yeah, maybe so, but never this late at night, and never on Halloween. It's really dark down here in the basement, too. Hey, don't forget...we still need to change into our costumes for the Jeffersonian Halloween Gala, remember?" Booth looked over his shoulder suddenly into the darkness. "Did you hear that?"

"It was probably some sort of rodent. I'll let the janitors know that there's a killer mouse down here, waiting to attack unsuspecting FBI agents. Will that make you feel better?" She smiled as she bent over her exam table. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with anything even remotely scary, even if it is Halloween. Halloween is just another day, Booth. There's no reason to be uncomfortable in bone storage this evening as opposed to any other evening." Brennan ran her fingers along the chalky white femur that she was examining. "These grooves are quite unusual…"

"That didn't sound like a mouse to me…unless it was a really, really big mouse. I wouldn't want to run into a mouse that size in a dark alley..." Booth grimaced as he watched Brennan examine the bones on the table. "This guy is from World War I, isn't he? He probably can wait one more day to be identified…"

"Yes, he's an unknown that was found in France. It's only six, Booth, and the Gala doesn't start until eight. We have plenty of time. This won't take very long, especially if you stop interrupting me with your complaints about your illogical fears and concerns. I don't like to leave an identification unfinished once I start the process. Anyway, I'm sure there's no reason for your alarm. The Jeffersonian is an old building and there are bound to be unexplained creaks and other noises from time to time, but it has nothing to do with the bones in storage down here."

"Well, pardon me for being uncomfortable in a dark, scary room filled with boxes of bones from unidentified dead people. I guess I'm just a normal scaredy cat, unlike someone I know…" Booth tapped his foot, trying to be patient, but he was growing increasingly nervous as he felt the darkness growing heavier. "I wonder if they ever come down here looking for their bones…walking around in the dark, trying to find their earthly remains..."

Rolling her eyes, Brennan gave Booth a steely glare. "These bones belong to people who are dead, Booth. They can't come back to life." She gave him a sly look. "Besides, doesn't your church teach that the souls of the faithful departed go to Heaven, and the rest go to Hell or to Purgatory? If that's true, why would some of the souls of the dead still be left here on earth? That doesn't make sense, even from a superstitious man like you."

Hearing another creak from the darkness, Booth quickly perched himself on a stool across from Brennan. "I don't know...I guess it might be like Hell or Purgatory, having to walk the earth forever after you're dead, without ever resting...looking for your body, trying to understand what happened to you, but never getting an explanation...trying to communicate with folks but no one believes you actually still exist." A shiver ran through him as he heard a loud scratching sound in a far corner of the room. "Besides, there are a lot of things that just can't be explained by science."

"Like your Yeti story?" Brennan chuckled as she examined the skull in front of her. "Although in that circumstance I came up with a logical explanation for what you think you saw, and you still chose not to accept it."

"I know what I saw, Bones…it was a Yeti." He inhaled deeply and puffed out a sigh. "My mother's family was Irish, you know? The Maloneys...they have a banshee…"

"A banshee?" Brennan looked up from the skull in disbelief. "That's ridiculous…"

"The White Lady. She shows up on your doorstep when someone's about to die...she just sits and stares off into space, moaning softly. My mother saw her the day before her father died…an old lady she'd never seen before, dressed in white clothes, keening and moaning..."

Biting back an unkind comment about the relationship between banshee sightings and the large amount of whiskey the Irish were rumored to consume, Brennan nodded. "That's interesting, but I'm sure there's a logical explanation for what she saw, Booth. It could've been her mind's way of warning her about her father's failing health. Anyway, technically, banshees aren't ghosts. They are the manifestation of the desire that human beings have to understand the world around them. Anthropologically speaking, all cultures have stories about the harbingers of doom…"

"I've never seen the White Lady. I was just going by what my Mom said." The light over the table flickered, making Booth even more nervous. He licked his lips as he watched Brennan's fingers lightly brush over the skeleton's sternum and ribs. "But, actually, um...I've seen a ghost myself."

Sighing in exasperation, Brennan glared at Booth. "I'm trying to finish this examination, Booth. I don't have time for your silly stories."

After glancing away from her as he saw something dart across the room out of the corner of his eye, he pursed his lips and stared at the bones in front of him. "The Philly row house that Pops and Nana lived in was old...it had been built about 1910. I mean, it had been remodeled in the fifties, before they moved in, but the original structure was old."

"Hmm." Brennan glanced up at Booth and crossed her arms across her chest. "Another wild story, Booth? I have work to do. I thought you were in a hurry to leave..."

"Just listen, okay? So I'd been living with Pops and Nana for a few weeks...I guess I was eleven or twelve. It was late at night, after everyone had gone to bed. I was thirsty, and I wanted a drink of water, but I had to go downstairs to get it. I didn't want to wake everyone up, so I walked to the stairway in the dark, and I saw her…"

"Your grandmother?" Brennan's eyes danced merrily. She loved teasing Booth when he was trying to tell a story like this. He always tried to convince her that a wild tale like this was true, just to prove to her that science was wrong.

"No, it wasn't Nana. It was a very young woman, maybe 19 or 20, in an old fashioned white lace dress, coming up the stairs. She was really pale and thin, like she'd been sick, but she nodded at me and smiled, and then…" Booth gulped a bit as he nervously remembered what happened next. "...then she walked through the wall at the top of the landing. I about wet my pants...I ran back to my bed and pulled the covers up over my head."

"There's a logical explanation for what you saw, Booth. You were dreaming...there wasn't really a young woman on the stairs…" Brennan chuckled as she started to put the bones back in their container. "I think perhaps you're taking the idea behind this holiday too seriously." Looking across the table at him, she was surprised that he wasn't laughing as well.

Fidgeting uncomfortably, Booth shook his head. "That's what I thought, too...that I was dreaming. I knew there were no such things as ghosts, so I didn't say anything to Pops and Nana. I didn't want them to regret taking me in, you know? So even though I saw the woman several times in different parts of the house, I always told myself it was just my imagination." He bit his lip when he realized Brennan had stopped what she was doing and was giving him her full attention. "Then one morning, Jared came down to breakfast all upset, saying that he'd had a bad dream and it had kept him awake all night. He dreamed that a young woman he'd never seen before had come into his bedroom and had pulled the blankets up around him and patted him on the head. When he described her, I knew it was the same woman I'd seen in the house as well." Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, Booth continued. "I tried to shush him...I didn't want Nana to think we were troublemakers, you know, trying to make up stories just to get a rise out of her, but Nana just laughed and reassured both of us that we weren't going to get into trouble for making up stories. She said that Jared and I had both been visited by the ghost of Millicent Walker. Nana had gotten so used to seeing her in the house that she'd forgotten to warn us that we might see her, too. Millicent had lived in the house with her parents, and she had died there of the Spanish flu in 1917. Nana thought maybe Millicent was looking for her fiance', and that's why she roamed the house, but she couldn't find him, so she couldn't rest. It seemed he was in the Army and Nana thought he was killed in France about the same time as Millicent died, although they never found his remains. Anyway, after a while, Jared and I got used to seeing her, too, and she wasn't really anything to be frightened of, so we weren't ever really scared of her after that." Another loud creak came from the darkness, causing Booth to tug at his collar. "Are you finished yet, Bones? We need to go change our clothes…"

"Just a minute." Brennan signed the form on her clipboard, identifying the soldier as 20 year old Calvin Masters. "I'm sure there must be some explanation for what you saw other than a visit from beyond, Booth. There are no such things as ghosts, spectres, spirits, or apparitions…" She moved the box off the table and put it with the rest of the identified remains so they could be returned to their families. Picking up her bag, she shook her head. "It's just not physically possible for ghosts to exist. You're an intelligent, well educated man. You should know that…."

"You just don't want to believe that your beloved science can't explain something, right? You can't stand the thought that there might be something that defies the laws of physics." Booth grinned as he waited by the door, his hand on the light switch. "I know what I saw, Bones...and I saw Millicent many times. It wasn't like seeing the Yeti once...I lost count of how many times I saw her ghost. It got so common it was like she was part of the family…"

"I don't believe you, Booth. I think you're making this story up simply to annoy me…" Brennan shook her finger at her partner. "You know ghost stories don't scare me, right? You're just trying to play a Halloween prank on me. You're trying to get me to admit there might be things that science can't explain. Well, I won't do it, because it just isn't true..."

"Fine. I tell you what, let me get Jared on the phone…" Booth turned off the light, and Brennan locked the door behind them.

"That won't be necessary. I'm sure, knowing you as I do, he's in on this elaborate joke…" The partners continued to bicker loudly as they walked up the stairs.

 _A ghostly giggle wafted across the darkened bone storage room. "Why didn't you try harder to let them know we could hear them, Cal? We should've shown ourselves to them. I bet that woman would've believed the man then...She would've known we were real."_

" _I thought I was making enough noises to prove we were here. I could tell he heard me, even if she didn't…"_

" _She thought you were a mouse." There was another soft giggle. "He was always such a nice boy. He was right...his family was very welcoming. But I wanted her to believe in us, too."_

" _Aw, you know, Millie...We got nothing to prove, right? it doesn't really make any difference if they believe in us or not, does it? We're together, and we believe in us...and nothing else matters, right? I love you, Millicent Walker…"_

" _I love you, too, Calvin Masters…."_

 _Oooooooo_

 _I hope you enjoyed my little ghost story. Happy Halloween! Laura_


End file.
